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My YouTube Story is Short

2010-05-17 · Hank · watch on YouTube · Internet & YouTube · reflection essay

On YouTube's fifth 'community birthday', which he notes is also Katherine's birthday, Hank tells his YouTube story: he is flattered to be on YouTube's timeline twice, but the real story of YouTube is groups of people doing things together without sharing physical space.

What is said

00:00:00 — YouTube's fifth birthday: Hank disputes May 17 as the date

  • ★★ Hank says May 17 is not really YouTube's fifth birthday: YouTube was created in February 2005, and May 17 is apparently being marked as the birth of the YouTube community. (hedged) — 00:00:00 · YouTube
  • ★★ Hank says nothing of significance to YouTube appears to have happened on May 17, 2005, his first problem with the chosen date. (playful) (hedged) — 00:00:14 · YouTube

00:00:29 — May 17 is Katherine's birthday; YouTube's call for YouTube stories and its community timeline

  • ★★ Hank's second objection: May 17 is already the birthday of 'the most important Catherine in the entire world', his wife. (playful) — 00:00:29 · Katherine Green
  • ★★ Hank asks viewers to leave birthday wishes for Katherine in the comments. — 00:00:29 · Katherine Green
  • ★★ Hank says YouTube is marking the anniversary by collecting people's YouTube stories, which he found interesting and good, and recommends viewers watch them. — 00:00:40 · YouTube
  • ★★ Hank notes he is the only person besides YouTube's founders who appears twice on YouTube's community-history timeline, while John is not on it at all. (playful) — 00:00:45 · YouTube, John Green

00:00:56 — Hank's two appearances on the timeline: the DFTBA Records announcement and the first-P4A couch song with Katherine

  • ★★★ Hank says one timeline video shows him and business partner Alan announcing DFTBA Records, the record company that represents only YouTube musicians. — 00:00:56 · Alan Lastufka, DFTBA Records
  • ★★★ The other shows Hank and Katherine on a thrift-store couch singing about how amazing the first Project for Awesome was; Hank says the P4A has since grown bigger and better. — 00:01:10 · Katherine Green, Project for Awesome

00:01:34 — The real story of YouTube is people doing things together; Hank's own YouTube story; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank says he is far prouder that people chose to work with them on those projects, since without those people the projects would be nothing. — 00:01:34 · collective action
  • ★★★ Hank argues the real story of YouTube is groups of people who do things and have fun together though they rarely occupy the same physical space. — 00:01:40 · YouTube, collective action
  • ★★★ Hank gives his own YouTube story: his brother convinced him to do something ridiculous they thought would be about two people, and it turned out to be about many more. — 00:01:55 · John Green, Brotherhood 2.0

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